Former British and Australian prisoners of war are rescued by the crew of USN submarine USS Pampanito (SS-383).
SS Rakuyo Maru (楽洋丸) was a passenger cargo ship built in 1921 by the Mitsubishi Shipbuilding & Engineering Company, Nagasaki for Nippon Yusen Kisen Kaisha. Serving as a troopship in World War II, the Rakuyō Maru was torpedoed and sunk by USS Sealion on 12 September 1944.
Service history
The troopship was part of convoy HI-72 and transporting 1,317 Australian and Britishprisoners of war (POWs) from Singapore to Formosa (Taiwan).
Another ship in the convoy was SS Kachidoki Maru with another 950 Allied POWs and 1,095 Japanese on board.[2]
On the morning of 12 September 1944, the convoy was attacked in the Luzon Strait by a wolfpack consisting of three US submarines: USS Growler, USS Pampanito and USS Sealion. Rakuyō Maru was torpedoed by Sealion and sunk towards the evening. The Kachidoki Maru was also sunk with 488 people killed, mostly POWs. The Japanese survivors of the Rakuyō Maru were rescued by an escort vessel, leaving the POWs in the water with rafts and some abandoned boats. A total of 1,159 POWs died, including Australian rugby union player Winston Ide and Brigadier Arthur Varley. The dead included 350 POWs who were bombarded in lifeboats and killed by a Japanese navy vessel the next day when they were rowing towards land.[3] On 15 September, the three submarines returned to the area and rescued 149 surviving POWs who were on rafts.[4] Four others died before they could be landed at Tanapag Harbor, Saipan, in the Mariana Islands.[3][5]
